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Housing sector catering to millennials' taste for luxury

'There's this desire for instant gratification,' property management company owner says of his own generation

By Samantha Samson, CBC News Posted: Oct 25, 2016 4:00 AM CT Last Updated: Oct 25, 2016 7:51 AM CT

Rahim Mirza says he's had to adjust the way he appeals to clients when handling millennials looking to buy a home.

"If you have a property that is finished but it's not staged, [millennials] are having a harder time to envision it," said Rahim Mirza, who is a millennial himself.

A staged home, he said, sells much faster. "All they want is that image in their head," he added.

Millennials — those born between 1980 and 2000 —  currently make up roughly one quarter of Winnipeg's population. As many enter the housing market, they appear to be shifting the way the industry operates.

Mirza isn't the only one noticing a change.

"The No. 1 word that you hear is luxury," said Adrian Schulz, president of Imperial Properties, a property management company.

"I think that can be correlated to the fact that millennials come from their parents' generation," said Schulz, who is also a millennial. "The things millennials got to enjoy in their upbringing, the moment they graduate from school, there's this desire for instant gratification."

Luxury items sought by younger clients include stainless steel appliances, granite countertops and heated garages, he said. It's largely facade, he said, while building styles themselves have changed little.

He cautions, though, that it took the parents of millennials 30 years to attain what some millennials now see as a standard of living.

Trendy hotspots

Home ownership is important to most millennials, according to a Pollara survey of 2,079 Canadians aged 19 to 35 earlier this year. Nine out of 10 respondents agreed that they believed there was value in buying a home.

Brennan Leslie looks through the kitchen of a bungalow in East Kildonan. (Samantha Samson)

However, the poll, conducted for the Bank of Montreal, found that 70 per cent of millennials surveyed would rather delay home ownership until they can get what they really want in a home. That might mean living with their parents longer to save up until they can own the home they want.

Mirza, who estimates about 70 per cent of his clients are millennials, said he's also noticed most millennials are choosing homes to be close to specific communities. For some, this might mean heading to suburb developments like Bridgwater Forest but for most of Mizra's clients this means being closer to downtown Winnipeg.

"More millennials are trying to go to the trendier hot spots where there's nightlife, like St. Boniface, Osborne Village, The Exchange District," Mirza said.

"I'm noticing a lot of new developments are almost exclusively built around what a millennial's tastes would be."

Brennan Leslie, a 19-year-old Red River College student, is among the millennials looking to own a home.

He says he's willing to take on a lengthy mortgage to enter the market and admits spending over budget is a problem he's trying to break.

"Me, as well as many of my peers, are all guilty of wracking up a big credit card bill. A big part of it is that we find something that we like and we go out to just buy it right away," he said.

Even in a stable housing market like Winnipeg's, Schulz cautions against taking on too much debt.

Buying a home should be a waiting — and saving — game, he says.

"The bottom line is millennials have a desire to live beyond their means, banks have a desire to lend money above and beyond what people can truly afford," Schulz said.

"But ultimately, it's the decision of the individual," he said. "It wouldn't be fair to blame it on anyone other than ourselves."